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INFORMATION, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND QUALITY OF DEMOCRACY
Juan Camilo MALDONADO TOVAR
[email protected]
Instituto de Iberoamérica, Universidad de Salamanca, SPAIN
ABSTRACT: This paper follows the debate over accountability and the place
that it occupies on the quality of democracy indexes. Here, I will argue that
access and disclosure of public information is an important dimension of all
various accountabilities (vertical, horizontal, social and transversal). Therefore, I
identify the different stages within these various accountabilities where access
and disclosure of information play a pivotal role. Afterwards, I compare these
findings to the quality of democracy indexes to verify how thoroughly they
include information and transparency indicators when evaluating accountability
in democratic regimes.
Key words: accountability, social control, quality of democracy.
I. INTRODUCTION
During the last years, the transparency of public administration and its
social control have occupied a privileged place within the debate about
democracy and its quality, specially since the beginning of the democratic
transitions that took place in many corners of the world. The debate is part of a
broader task in Political Science: not only explaining why authoritarian regimes
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transform into democratic regimes, but explaining why a certain type of
democracy or what quality of democracy appeared in these new and young
regimes (Morlino, 2007).
Accountability, the process through which public officials are responsible
as well as subject to scrutiny, and are therefore rewarded or punished
depending on the results of their deeds, is an indispensable dimension for many
democracy theorists. At the core of this definition, however, lies a reality that
has not been fully explored: the role-played by public information in the
relationship between accountable and accounting actors. To understand it, it is
useful to portray this process as an act of communication, where a certain array
of processes and mechanisms are activated between two or more actors that
exchange information1.
The accountability process involves the enunciation of an enquiry to the
accountable actor, which is followed by the enunciation of an answer,
transmitted through a certain channel. Since the listener (accounting actor) is
actively participating in this dialogue (Wolton, 2006), the effect of this exchange
of information is the final application of certain rewards or sanctions.
This paper aims to demonstrate that public information is an essential
element of all forms of accountability and, therefore, any discussion about
measuring the quality of democracy should reflect thoroughly all the dimensions
where information plays a pivotal role within accountable processes. To achieve
this, I will identify the role that public information plays in various
accountabilities (O’Donnell, 2002; Insunza, 2002). Then, we will examine the



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way in which this subject has been treated by the quality of democracy indexes.
Finally I conclude with a set of questions and research challenges based on this
exploratory exercise.
II. INFORMATION AND ITS PLACE IN VARIOUS ACCOUNTABILITIES
II.1. Electoral accountability
Regardless of its multiple definitions, all types of accountability have one
element in common: they are “dialogic relationships” that involve accounting
actors and accountable actors (Schedler, 1999) in an open dialogue where they
share and process information.
Przeworski and Cheihub (1999: 225) consider this relationship to be
vertical. In their vision, the accountable actor is the government and the citizens
represent the accounting actor. Through voting, the latter rewards or punishes
the performance of the former. Thus, governments are accountable as long
citizens can discern whether their governments act on their favor and punish
them with their vote if they do not. This vision of vertical accountability has also
been named electoral accountability, because it is at the polls and in a
retrospective manner that citizens reward or punish elected officials
In the vertical accountability, the accounting actor asks himself a
question: does this government act in my benefit? Then he tries to obtain
answers based on the information available in his surroundings and finally
issues one verdict through his vote, which is in turn a new piece of information
in the dialogue established between both actors.
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Evidently, this type of accountability has several problems. Przeworski,
Stokes and Manin (1999: 40-51) have pointed out that electoral accountability
does not lead to representation because the electorate has such diverse and
numerous demands that it is impossible to condense all of them simultaneously
in one single reward (a reelection vote). Furthermore, the established dialogue
is ostensibly asymmetrical due to the incommensurable disadvantage of
citizens in terms of their access to useful information. In other words, public
officials have privileged knowledge resources that allow them to make decisions
whose results cannot be rationally assessed by a voter whose information is
considerably limited.
Based on these remarks a first hypothesis can be sketched about the
role played by information in the accountability process: regardless of the
intrinsic limitations of the electoral accountability, the type of information
available to voters about the deeds and decisions of their elected officials can
affect the way they are rewarded or punished at the polls.
II. 2. Horizontal Accountability
O’Donnell (2007: 87) considers that new democracies, such as most of
the contemporary Latin American regimes, face additional problems in terms of
their electoral control mechanisms. He points out that these societies suffer
from a preponderancy of non-structured party systems, high voter and party
volatility, poor definition of the issues of the public agenda and abrupt changes
in the orientation of public policy.
Searching for a better way to establish accountability in new
democracies, O’Donnell makes the case for horizontal or interinstitutional
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accountability, based in the classic principle of checks and balances of public
branches, where the state establishes self-control mechanisms. O’Donnell’s
vision of horizontal accountability involves an institutional design that invest
certain state actors with the “rights, the legal power and the political autonomy
to oversee, control, rectify and/or sanction illegal deeds of other state
institutions” (2007: 99-101).
With
this
horizontal
complementation,
O’Donnell
solves
several
limitations that existed within electoral accountability. First, the actors in the
dialogic relationship change: the accountable actors are not just elected
officials, but the whole bureaucratic system, while the accounting actors stop
being the citizens and become a group of technical bureaucrats with specific
control functions. With theses changes, the scope of control is enlarged and its
practice is professionalized.
O’Donnell (2007: 109-110) recognizes that horizontal accountability has
important and difficult challenges in Latin America, among others, the
“essential” need for accurate and opportune information for horizontal
accounting actors. In Dissonances: Democratic Critiques of Democracy, the
author sustains that a set of conditions for that to exist includes: the existence
of “relatively” independent media, research centers, and state institutions that
“produce, with independence and objectivity, information about diverse
indicators” (2007: 109-110).
By recognizing the information deficit that exists in Latin American
horizontal accountability processes, O’donnell points out to a reality that has
been treated with great detail by Schedler (1999: 14): in any accountability
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process accounting actors must assume the opacity of information, which is a
characteristic intimately related to the mere nature of power.
This fact has inspired Schedler to propose a new type of accountability
definition that is sensible to the idea of information opacity. This “modest”
definition
of
“political
accountability”
assumes
that
in
any
particular
accountability process there are three elements that have to be taken into
account: information, justification and punishment (Schedler 1999: 17).
However, the intensity in which these elements appear vary, and therefore, its
assessment has to be sensible to this fact. In other words, the traditional
definition of accountability2 needs to be set aside in order to work with a more
realistic one that is prepared to encounter processes where there is little
information, justification or punishment, and vice versa.
In
our
effort
to pinpoint
the
place
of
information
within
the
accountabilities, we can suppose that an accountability process implies both
mechanisms of access to information and disclosure of justifications, whose
character and intensity vary from case to case. In practice, this should
encourage us to identify all principles, norms, rules and mechanisms that
guarantee access to information and information disclosure, but also to assess
the effectiveness of its use.
That being said, we propose a second hypothesis: the institutional
designs that determine the principles, norms, rules and mechanisms that
regulate both access to information and information disclosure (justifications)



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are elements that affect the capability of horizontal accounting actors when
exercising their duty to scrutinize all accountable actors.
II. 3. Social and transversal accountability
The inherent limitations of electoral and horizontal accountabilities,
especially in young democracies such as the ones in Latin America, plus the
strengthening and growing autonomy of ample sectors of Civil Society, have
seen the emergence of a new way of understanding accountability. O’Donnell
(1998: 27), in a very optimistic tone, considered it a “good news” that was a type
of vertical accountability, while Cunill Grau (2007a: 15), noting its fluid and
episodic nature, dubbed it “spontaneous accountability”3. Finally, Peruzzotti and
Smulovitz (2006: 10) proposed the concept of social accountability, defining it
as a “non-electoral yet vertical mechanism of control of political authorities that
rests on the actions of an array of citizens’ associations and movements and
the media”.
The spectrum of social accountability is ample. It includes political
scandals aired by mass media, the judicialization of politics by Civil Society
organizations, the increasing exercise of investigative journalism or the
denunciations made by Human Rights organizations, amongst others. Given
the usually unaccountable vocation of our institutions, social accountability has
become a very fruitful field of study in the region4.
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                   

   

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Social accountability seems to understand the basic precept of
Schedler’s information opacity (1999: 20). As an active and independent inquiry
exercise, it understands that information is a scarce and vital resource within
the democratic process that shapes and defines power5. Thus, the scope of
access to public information and the nature of that information become a pivotal
strategic dimension for all actors willing to exercise social control.
Another essential dimension that conditions social accountability’s
effectiveness rests on the ability of social actors “to have a voice” and position
their denunciations into the public eye. This process of “mediatization”
(Peruzzoti and Smulovitz 2007: 16) proves again the important linkage between
social control, public opinion and horizontal accountability, because social
accountability, despite its lack of punishment mechanisms, is able to make
visible illegal deeds, ignite interinstitutional accounting agents and impose
“reputation costs” to the accountable actors.
As a process, social accountability inserts itself in a double historical
juncture.
On one hand, the increasing participation of local, national and
transnational civic organizations that push for democratic transitions and benefit
from them. On the other hand, social accountability is encouraged by the
successive democratic reforms that have taken place since the early eighties. It
is amidst these reform pressures that the Latin American states begin the quest
for transparency and the effort to resolve a wide and complex set of questions:



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what is going to be allowed to be seen, how is it going to be disclosed and
under which conditions will it be disclosed6.
As Cunill Grau (2002: 193) sustains, public information is a “critical node”
for social accountability. While developing states keep struggling to enhance
their still imperfect horizontal accountability capabilities, information access can
determine “the possibility of public scrutiny” through which control is performed.
The consequence of this argument is clear: in closed societies, where discretion
and secrecy are the norm, social control withers.
Information is also a pivotal factor in another type of social accountability,
named “transversal” accountability (Insunza, 2002), where the social control is
encouraged by the state or its agencies through participation mechanisms. In
this respect, the Brazilian case is a good example. As Batista Calvancati (2006)
has pointed out, Brazil’s 1988 Constitution enacted many rights and
mechanisms to guarantee participatory democracy. However, the Brazilian state
has been unable to close the breach between the legal frameworks that
guarantee social control and the effective use of these mechanisms. Calvancati
has proposed that in order to redefine and empower local institutions the
Brazilian state should introduce mechanisms that guarantee access to
information that reflect the management of local administration.
In sum, we can suppose that in order to meet its accounting objectives,
social and transversal accountability depend heavily on regimes that include
principles, norms, rules and mechanisms that deal with information access and

 

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information divulging. The dimension of access to information would encourage
and improve the work of social accounting actors and also enhance the
participation of transversal accounting actors. The divulgence dimension, in
turn, should encourage both the proactive disclosure of information by the state
but also enable social accounting actors to freely develop their “voice capacity”
within a given political system.
III. INFORMATION AND QUALITY OF DEMOCRACY
So far, the various accountabilities have been identified as well as the
decisive roles that public information plays within them. This path has revealed
that principles, norms, rules and mechanisms that regulate information access
and information divulgence are critical to accountability processes.
In electoral accountability, information about public officials, including the
one pertaining to their campaign promises and financing sources, aides the
accounting actor (the citizen) when using his vote to reward or punish a certain
official. In horizontal accountability, information is important as long as it is
accessible, systematically disclosed and independently gathered. In social
accountability, information must be free: that is, social accounting actors
depend a great deal on the capacity to access public information and their
ability to voice their findings. Finally, transversal accountability depends on
access to independent public information to enhance citizen participation in
state-sponsored accountability processes, if they do not, they would solely
function as mere legitimizing propaganda mechanisms.
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As mentioned at the beginning, the quality of democracy debate has
generally considered accountability to be an important dimension of democratic
quality assessment. This is not surprising, since the majority of scholars, who
are devoted to this subject, consider accountability a defining feature of
democracy.
Morlino (2007: 5) proposes a “minimum definition” of democracy that
includes “universal suffrage, masculine and feminine; free, competitive,
recurring and correct elections; more than one party and diverse and alternative
information sources”. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance (IDEA) defines democracy as a function of two basic principles:
“popular control and political equality” (Beetham, Carvalho, Landman and Weir,
2008: 4). Levine and Molina define it as a system of representation with free
and universal participation, equality in rights and rules of the game, where rights
and procedures regulate who governs, and where associations and individuals
influence as well as demand responsibility from their governments (Levine y
Molina, 2007: 20).
Since accountability is often associated with the idea of democracy, it is
just natural that most of democracy assessments include it in their indexes7.
IDEA states that a democracy must be assessed based on seven mediating
values: participation, authorization, representation, accountability, transparency,
responsiveness and solidarity. While accountability is explicitly included, both
transparency and participation relate to accountability. Transparency is a quality





of an accounting process whose opacity level is low and participation is a
necessary condition for many accounting processes to happen.
Morlino, in turn, recognizes six dimensions that ought to be assessed,
two of which relate directly to accountability: rule of law, electoral accountability,
interinstitutional accountability, responsiveness, freedom and equality (Morlino
2007: 7 and 8). Levine and Molina propose a “procedural” definition of quality of
democracy that has
five dimensions: electoral
decision, participation,
responsibility, responsiveness to popular will and sovereignty (Levine y Molina,
2006: 24-28). Lastly, the political rights and civil liberties of Freedom House look
at seven dimensions; three of which deal with accountability (Freedom House,
2007).
If accountability matters for quality of democracy measurement, and
information is a critical element of accountability, how and in which ways do
democracy assessments deal with information access and information
divulgence?
Do they reflect the different information needs of the various
accountabilities?
In order to answer this question, we have to consider every indicator that
each index uses to measure a certain form of accountability process (electoral,
horizontal, social or transversal). Then, we will determine whether the indicators
measure information access or information divulgence8. Since these two
dimensions have usually been associated with the concept of transparency (see
Fox, 2007) and since many indicators just state “transparency” or “transparent”


                
                



as the main feature to be observed in any given aspect of an accountability
process, we have created a third category that includes indicators that openly
refer to transparency but that fail to mention how that transparency will be
measured. This problem of conceptual ambiguity will be discussed later on.
The two main indexes that were picked for the final stage of this study
are IDEA and Freedom House. Levine and Molina and Democracy Ranking
were left out, since they both include the Freedom House indicators in their
studies. Levine and Molina (2007: 34-29) add eight new indicators to the
Freedom House index, but none of them deal directly with information access,
information divulgence or general transparency issues. Democracy Ranking
(2008) takes the Freedom House index as one dimension of its study. It then
includes five other dimensions that consider human development issues such
as gender, economy, knowledge, health and environment. Interestingly,
Democracy Ranking creators have referred to the “knowledge dimension” as a
“key for the performance of advanced knowledge-based economies and
societies” that are “are complemented by a “knowledge-based democracy”
(Campbell, 2008). However, none of their indicators include access to public
information or information divulgence.
Let us now analyze the diverse ways in which IDEA and Freedom House
address information in their accountability assessments (Charts 1 and 2).
Electoral accountability: At first glance, it can be seen that of all
accountabilities, the electoral is the least assessed one in terms of information
access and information divulgence. IDEA stresses the importance of finding
mechanisms that promote disclosure of campaign financing. Meanwhile,


Freedom House puts emphasis on transparency mechanisms for voter
registration, candidate registration and vote count. It can be see that one
approaches ex ante information needs while the other one addresses ex post
information needs.
Interinstitutional accountability: Neither one of the indexes attends to
interinstitutional accounting actors such as the ombudsman. When they do refer
to horizontal accounting actors, they tend to privilege the legislature, especially
IDEA.
Another interesting feature that emerges from this analysis is the
difference in the qualities both indexes look for when assessing information.
Both refer to the importance of states disclosing information. However, in IDEA,
there is a strong emphasis on the “independence” of the agency that collects
and produces that information in the first place. On the other hand, Freedom
House expects information to be “detailed” and delivered “timely”.
Finally, for IDEA, the most relevant accountable subjects are: executive
performance,
taxation
and
public
expenditure.
For
Freedom
House,
“government contracts” are the main subject to be accounted for.
Social accountability: Both indexes share three common values:
freedom of expression, access to information and media independence.
However, as far as social accountability is concerned, they have also marked
contrasts.
In terms of access to information, IDEA does not just look for access to
information rights; it also wants to verify if that access actually occurs in the real


world. Its indicators are result-oriented; it looks for legal rights but also for
proofs of negligence on information disclosure or other laws that may be an
obstacle to it. Freedom House instead focuses on the right and the abilities
needed for petition. As with many other issues of citizenship, it is not enough to
have a legal right protected, citizens also need to develop capabilities to enjoy
that right while governments should make it easy for those who are less
capable to do so.
In terms of media independence, Freedom House takes the lead. Its
index has six specified indicators to assess the level of independence of a
media outlet. Additionally, it is also concerned about the physical protection of
those who investigate and denounce. However, those indicators all share the
same preoccupation: that the media is independent of the government.
However, Freedom House is less concerned about the media being
independent from powerful private sectors. In contrast, IDEA seems overtly
more interested in this kind of dependence. Its index values foreign
governments or corporation media independence, as well as pluralistic media
ownership. It also considers it a bad sign of access to information if the media
depends on official or corporate channels of information.
Transversal accountability: Freedom House does not explicitly mention
processes of transversal accountability. However, it does state that budget
planning should be scrutinized. Without any further information, it is very difficult
to ensure that this would mean an assessment of participatory budget planning
or any other form of transversal accountability, for instance. IDEA, in contrast,
looks for “public consultation on policy and legislation” by the government and
the legislature. These procedures must be open, systematic, inclusive and


transparent. Again, without more information-specific indicators, it is very
difficult to establish whether this assessment is concerned with the quality of
information being disclosed by the states in these processes.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This study has clearly demonstrated the close relationship between
information and the various accountabilities. It has revealed that these links are
complex and they involve two levels or dimensions: information access and
information divulgence. As long as this conceptual line is respected, it will be
possible to draw better definitions of transparency, which many times is used by
quality of democracy indexes without an explicit clarification. That confusion, in
turn, makes it very hard to perform proper operationalizations in order to
measure the effectiveness of accountability processes.
In terms of the assessment that both indexes make of the different
accountabilities and their information needs, we can draw some conclusions.
First, both indexes are rather weak when measuring information in electoral
accountability. IDEAS’ ex ante approach and Freedom House’s ex post
approach could be combined so that a more comprehensive set of information
indicators is available in electoral contexts. It is understandable to assume that
when a free press and an active civil society exist, electoral information
divulgence will be guaranteed. However, relying on social accountability for
assuring electoral divulgence risks to exonerate the state from its responsibility
to open up and disclose timely, independent and complete information


regarding political candidates, campaign financing, and voter registration,
among others.
Another interesting element emerges from the way the indexes assess
horizontal accountability. Again, what can be seen is a conspicuous disregard
for critical and classical agents of horizontal accountability such as the
ombudsman. In terms of information needs, as it has been stated earlier, there
are too few indicators on information divulgence for interinstitutional control.
Future research should establish if this fact affects the performance of
interinstitutional horizontal agents.
Finally, the attention put on social accounting agents is remarkable. In
the future, it should be established whether social accountability affects
information divulgence and its quality. In other words, whether the pressure of
social accounting actors can lead to a widening or shortening of state secrecy.
Furthermore, accountability and transparency scholars can learn form
quality of democracy indexes. By observing how they try to assess
accountability processes, we can begin to distinguish the complex and diverse
pathways where information needs emerge. Neither those pathways nor the
indicators used are obvious, as it has been confirmed when comparing the
marked differences between the IDEA and Freedom House approaches.
IDEA and Freedom House encourage many insights. First and foremost,
that access to information is not enough to guarantee accountability; when
talking about quality of democracy, the quality of that information has to be kept
in mind. For IDEA, this means having independent agents, which collect and
produce that information. Freedom House emphasizes the timeliness and detail


with which that information is produced. The question on how public information
is gathered, organized and divulged is crucial for the quality of accountability,
especially for Latin American democracies whose modernization is still in
process and where there is a remarkable lack of information protocols and
systematization procedures.
For future research, an information for democracy regime could be
drafted, in which all features that public information must have in order to satisfy
the needs of a successful accountability process are systematically gathered.
The building of this regime could help quality democracy scholars as well. By
building a set of dimensions and indicators that fully reflect the various
accountabilities and their information access and divulgence needs, we could
contribute to the construction of a transparency index that thoroughly reflects
the needs of each accounting actor in each accountability process.
So far, democracy indexes have been very concerned with the
measurement of the legal frameworks that protect the right to access
information, the right to petition and the right to freedom of speech. They are
also worried about guaranteeing the independence of accounting actors,
especially those coming from the civil society, including their effective
protection. However, much more is needed to measure the information being
accessed and the effective pathways being used to enjoy these rights. For
instance, we need to understand how often journalists exercise their right to
petition, or how much they just divulge hidden leaks coming from third sources.
Likewise, we still need to assess and understand the way that information is
being presented to any given accounting actor. Anyone who unsuccessfully
tries to access and navigate Latin American legislatures’ digital files will


understand that we a long way to go. E-democracy and information science
scholars can lend a helping hand on this task.
As we have seen, neither one of the indexes has a comprehensive
conceptual framework to assess the various accountabilities. Consequently, it is
still very difficult to assess thoroughly the quality of their “information regimes”.
For future exercises, we need to invite other disciplines to the dialogue with
accountability researchers in order to establish: a comprehensive list of
accounting actors and accountable9 actors across the various accountabilities,
as well as the set of their needs in terms of access and divulgence of
information. So far we have seen the importance of independence and
timeliness when public information is gathered and disclosed. Much more could
be found in future research.

       
              









Chart. 1
Information indicators found in IDEAS’ Quality of Democracy Assessment
ACCOUNTABILITY
TYPE
INFORMATION INDICATOR TYPE
Access
Electoral
Horizontal
•
•
•
Extensive and effective powers of the
legislature to oversee the executive and
hold it to account.
o Laws governing legislative
scrutiny, powers of disclosure
and sanction.
o Exclusion from the scrutiny
process, record of significant
failures.
Rigorous procedures for approval and
supervision of taxation and public
expenditure.
Effectiveness of the scrutiny process for
public finances. The government’s
international policy is subject to effective
parliamentary oversight and public
Divulgence
• Rules and procedures for financing
elections, candidates and elected
representatives that prevent their
subordination to sectional interests.
o Laws on the financing of
elections, expenditure of
candidates and the expenses
of elected representatives,
including disclosure.
•
•
Transparency
Extensive and effective powers of the •
legislature to oversee the executive
and hold it to account.
o Independence of government
information and statistical
services.
Rigorous procedures for approval
and supervision of taxation and public
expenditure.
o Independence of auditing
and accounting bodies.
Rigorous procedures for
approval and supervision of
taxation and public
expenditure.
o Lack of transparency in
public expenditures.
influence.
o The parliament or legislature
have sufficient and timely
information and adequate
expertise for effective oversight.
Social
• Comprehensive and effective right of
• Effective and equal protection of
access to government information
freedom of expression.
o Information access laws.
• Freedom of the press.
o Operation of the laws in practice. • Independent media from government,
o Existence of secrecy laws.
pluralistic ownership, and free from
o Significant failure to disclose.
subordination to foreign governments
• Effective media investigating
or multinational companies.
government and powerful corporations.
o Examine the extent to which the
media are dependent for their
information on official
government or corporate
channels.
Transversal
• Open and systematic procedures for
• Extensive procedures of the
public consultation on government
parliament or legislature for
policy and legislation.
consulting the public and relevant
o Inclusiveness of procedures.
interests across the range of its work.
o Systematic exclusions or
o Systematic practices
government bias.
• Extensive procedures of the parliament
or legislature for consulting the public
and relevant interests across the range
of its work.
o Legal basis for the responsibility
of parliament or legislature to
consult the public.
o Inclusive practices.
Source: Beetham, Carvalho, Landman and Weir (2008), own elaboration.
•
•
Open and systematic
procedures for public
consultation on government
policy and legislation.
o Transparency of
procedures.
Extensive procedures of the
parliament or legislature for
consulting the public and
relevant interests across the
range of its work.
o Transparent practices






Chart 2
Information indicators found in Freedom House Quality of Democracy Assessment
ACCOUNTABILITY
TYPE
INFORMATION INDICATOR TYPE
Access
Divulgence
Electoral
Horizontal
Social
•
•
Citizens have the legal right and
practical ability to obtain information
about government operations and
the means to petition government
agencies for it.
The asset declarations of officials
are open to public and media
scrutiny and verification.
Transparency
• Registration of voters and
candidates conducted in a
transparent manner.
• Transparent vote count,
reported honestly with the
official results made public
•
The government publishes detailed
accounting expenditures in a timely
manner.
•
State ensures transparency
when awarding government
contracts.
•
Government publishes detailed
accounting expenditures in a timely
manner.
Whistleblowers, anticorruption activists,
investigators, journalists enjoy legal
protections that make them feel secure
reporting cases of bribery and corruption.
Allegations of corruption are given wide
and extensive airing in the media.
Freedom of expression.
Free and independent media1.
•
The state ensures transparency
in the awarding of government
contracts.
•
•
•
•


Transversal
•
•
Budget-making process is subject to
meaningful public scrutiny.
Government publishes detailed
accounting expenditures in a timely
manner.


•
•
•
•
•
•
Government directly or indirectly does not censor media.
Absence of self-censorship among journalists, especially when reporting on politically sensitive issues, including corruption or the activities
of senior officials.
The government does not use libel and security laws to punish those who scrutinize government officials and policies through either
onerous fines or imprisonment.
If media outlets are dependent on the government for their financial survival, the government does not withhold funding in order to
propagandize, primarily provide official points of view, and/or limit access by opposition parties and civic critics.
The government does not attempt to influence media content and access through means including politically motivated awarding of
broadcast frequencies and newspaper registrations, unfair control and influence over printing facilities and distribution networks, selective
distribution of advertising, onerous registration requirements, prohibitive tariffs, and bribery.
Journalists are not threatened, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, or killed by government or nongovernmental actors for their legitimate
journalistic activities, and if such cases occur, they are investigated and prosecuted
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Catalina. Enforcing the Rule of Law: Social Accountability in the New Latin
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BEETHAM, David; CARVALHO, Edzia; LANDMAN, Todd, and W EIR, Stuart. Assesing
the Quality of Democracy: A Practical Guide. Stockholm, IDEA, 2008.
CAMPBELL, David. The Basic Concept for the Democracy Ranking of the Quality
of Democracy. Vienna: Democracy Ranking, 2008.
CHEIBUB, José Antonio and PRZEWORSKI, Adam. Democracy, Elections and
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CUNILL GRAU, Nuria. Nudos críticos de la accountability social: extrayendo
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nuevas democracias latinoamericanas. Temas, Buenos Aires, 2002, 193-217.
CUNILL GRAU, Nuria. La rendición de cuentas y el control social: una
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CUNILL GRAU, Nuria. Critical Junctures of Social Accountability: Lessons from
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FOX, Jonathan. The Uncertain Relationship between Transparency and
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010
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INSUNZA, Ernesto. Rendición de cuentas, sociedad civil y derechos humanos,
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Salamanca, 2002, 22 pp. See: http://cetrade.org/v2/book/export/html/278
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Oxon: Routledge, 2009, 15-26.
LEVINE, Daniel H. and MOLINA, José Enrique. La calidad de la democracia en
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MORLINO, Leonardo. Explicar la calidad democrática: ¿Qué tan relevantes son
las tradiciones autoritarias? Revista de Ciencia Política, Volumen 27, No. 2,
2007, pp. 3-22.
O’DONNELL, Guillermo. Accountability horizontal. Agora, 8, 1998, pp. 5-34.
O’DONNELL, Guillermo. Disonancias: críticas democráticas a la democracia.
Buenos Aires, Prometeo, 2007.
PRZEWORSKI, Adam; STOKES, Susan C.; MANIN, Bernard. Democracy,
Accountability and Representation. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
PERUZZOTTI, Enrique and SMULOVITZ, Catalina. Controlando la política:
ciudadanos y medios en las nuevas democracias latinoamericanas. Temas,
Buenos Aires, 2002.
PERUZZOTTI, Enrique and SMULOVITZ, Catalina. Enforcing the Rule of Law:
Social Accountability in the New Latin American Democracies. Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.
SCHEDLER, Andreas. Conceptualizing Accountability. IN: SCHEDLER, Andreas;
DIAMOND, Larry and PLATTNER, F. Marc (Eds.). The Self-Restraining State:
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13-28.
W OLTON, Dominique. Salvemos la comunicación: aldea global y cultura. una
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